problems with ethernet interface

[Ragnar Sundblad]

In article <7247 at bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> dyer at arktouros.MIT.EDU (Steve Dyer) writes:
>In my experience, "ifconfig ae0 up" was a no-op.  Programs complained
>"network down" anyway.  Someone else placed the line
>ifconfig ae0 down; ifconfig ae0 up
....
>Steve Dyer

That's probably one of the bugs in the National DP8390 (described in
DP8390 Tech Update, problem #3).

"
	Problem 3
	Suspended Operation After Transmission: If Collision (COL) is
	asserted during the transmission of the last byte, the NIC will
	suspend all operations. This problem is manifested when the
	Command Register continually reads 26H.
	The NIC must be hardware reset to resume operation.

	NOTE: In a properly operating IEEE 802.3 network, a collision will
	never occur during the last byte of transmission.
"

You can find the command register at the byte at address
	0xFSSE003C, where S = slot number (in a MacII 9 <= S <= E)
if you would like to check it out. (and if you somehow manage to
look at this address).

If this is the problem, you'd better check your ethernet.

Note: I don't THINK that the EtherTalk card exchange some months ago
solved this problem.